Expensive abuses have weakened the commission; reform needed

For those of you who have followed the case involving San Diego City Councilwoman Marti Emerald before the city’s Ethics Commission, fairness dictates a better explanation of the issue than you have received on the news pages of this newspaper.

The case began with an anonymous complaint, filed one week before the end of the 2008 council campaign, relating to a single inconsistency in a May 2008 disclosure report. That apparent inconsistency was explained by the campaign treasurer in 14 seconds at the recent hearing. Instead of attempting to resolve the issue informally (no one called the treasurer to get the simple explanation), the commission’s executive director, Stacey Fulhorst, sought and obtained permission to launch what would become one of the most protracted and expensive campaign investigations in city history.

Under the Municipal Code, while such investigations are authorized, they must be limited to “the complaint” received by the commission. While the complaint here related to a single issue on one of 15 reports, the investigation extended over 11 months and went far beyond that permitted by the code. For example, the campaign committee’s fundraiser, who had nothing to do with the single complaint authorized for investigation, was put through 41 separate communications with the commission’s investigators.

In April 2009, as a result of information voluntarily shared by both the committee’s treasurer and fundraiser, commission staff advised the committee it had belatedly reported two post-election “win bonuses.” The committee treasurer, within days, prepared and submitted amendments to the earlier post-election reports.

In June, with full knowledge of the win bonus error, the Ethics Commission offered the Emerald committee an opportunity to close the entire case if Emerald would sign a statement that she had overpaid her consultant (as if that would ever happen in a campaign). No mention was then made of the win bonus issue which had been voluntarily shared with the commission two months earlier.

Emerald refused to sign the proposed settlement in June of 2009, because it was not true.

And, after a full audit of the campaign in October, the commission ultimately agreed with Emerald and dropped the overpayment issue, although without even the courtesy of notifying the campaign committee.

The investigation then dragged on for months, well after the six-month limit on investigations recommended in the Municipal Code.

In September, now 11 months into the process, Emerald appeared before the commission and asked for the investigation to either be ended or charges brought. After tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money had been spent, she rightfully called the continuing investigation a “fishing expedition.” Days later, on the heels of this criticism, the commission’s attorney advised the committee it was charging Emerald with the win bonus violation disclosed in April, but not previously considered significant enough to charge.

In what may have been a first for the commission, Emerald personally attended the commission’s public meeting and acknowledged the error. Like hundreds of others before her, she sought a stipulated settlement and expressed her willingness to pay a fine. However, the commission insisted on language in the proposed settlement agreement that suggested intentional concealment of the win bonuses by the committee.